


How to fall in love with your best friend's girlfriend

by illyrianrhys



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Excessive Swearing, F/M, Modern AU, Pining, Tamlin is still a knob, classic take that, too much gin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 22:45:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15873231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illyrianrhys/pseuds/illyrianrhys
Summary: Feyre Archeron was a both a torment on Lucien's sanity and a torment on his restraint.He didn't intend for such an infatuation. But there he was, toeing the line between betraying his best friend and letting this infatuation consume him.Fate truly hated him.





	How to fall in love with your best friend's girlfriend

**Author's Note:**

> Just a little one shot that I have yet to post on here. Enjoy!!

“Hey, Lucien.”

Lucien snapped his head to the source of that damned voice.

“Feyre,” he grunted, quickly turning back to his breakfast. He didn’t dare take in her half-dressed state. Wearing only a T-shirt that showed off her ridiculously long legs that she was currently flaunting around the kitchen.

His flatmate, Tamlin, emerged afterwards. Already dressed in his business attire.

Great. Another Saturday morning spent with his best friend’s girlfriend. Simultaneously torturous and a downright fucking delight.

That’s what it was like to be hardcore crushing on someone who was utterly off limits. Fate hated him.

“I’ll be off,” Tamlin said, straightening his tie, unphased about working on a Saturday. He planted a kiss to Feyre’s cheek then nodded tensely to Lucien. “See you later. Don’t kill each other.”

“Yeah,” Lucien said, crunching on his cereal. “See you.”

Quite frankly, Lucien didn’t intend to fall hopelessly head over heels for the girl pouring far too much milk in her Weetabix. One moment she was just Tamlin’s newest conquest. The next she was spending far too many mornings and nights at their flat forcing Lucien to buy earplugs.

He first saw her coming out of Tamlin’s bedroom. He had stormed out the night before, after having fought with Lucien over the hole in the wall thanks to Tamlin’s fist. Lucien’s flatmate did not handle watching his football team lose. He had gone to a bar somewhere, and somehow managed to pick someone up Feyre Archeron.

Feyre, from the start, had been a constant pain his ass. Yet, a constant torment on his restraint.

“What’s on the agenda today, Lucie?” she asked, coming to sit across from him at the dining table. “Brooding? Scowling?  Plotting murders?”

He looked up. She looked too good for a Saturday morning.

“No, Saturdays are for arson, summoning demons and the odd spike of depression,” he said.

“How joyous. I may as well join you.”

This seemed to be a theme of theirs, it’s like he spoke a language of sarcasm with Feyre and Feyre alone.

He stared at her and she stared at him as she took a messy bite of her cereal.

She narrowed her eyes. “No, seriously, what’s up with you?”

_Could she seriously read him that easily?_

“I’ve ran out of candles to summon the latest de-“

She glared. “Lucien.”

Sighing, “I’m just feeling a little under the weather.”

It was true. Lucien was sick to death of his own feelings. Of hating himself for every time he looked into those eyes just because he fell that little bit deeper.

Off. Limits.

“I can cheer you up.”

A smile graced her face as she assessed him.

“How so?” he dared ask, running a hand through his hair, attempting to tame the strands.

Without a word, she stood and rounded the table towards him, only wearing a damned shirt.

“Feyre…” he warned, his heart beginning to pound as she took his hand and yanked him up from his chair and straight into her arms.

Right. Hugging. With his flatmates girlfriend. Totally cool.

Her arms were wrapped tightly round his back as if forcing him to relax into her touch. So, he did, sighing as he rested his head against hers, and forcing his arms to move around her own torso, savouring the few seconds of her body pressed against his, of her orange scented shampoo. She felt too good.

He began to sing the Friends theme tune in his head.

It had been ten seconds, at least, and Lucien was certain that this was moving from the hug territory into that of a cuddle territory and he didn’t even realise there was a such a  line to cross.  

But Feyre withdrew, humming and brushing his shoulder tenderly. His arms fell limp to his sides.

“Better?” she asked slightly bashfully.

_You have no idea_.

***

Feyre jabbed her elbow into Lucien’s side.

“What was that for?” he huffed, shoving her back. She almost fell into a tree.

“For leaving me alone with Tamlin and his shitty mates,” she said slapping his arm in response to her near tree death experience. They continued walking, the forest above looming.

It hadn’t been the ideal evening. They had gone to a house party, one of Feyre’s university friends, and Tamlin had invited a few of his own. Lucien and Feyre vowed to one another to not ditch the other. Yet, for approximately 12 minutes, Lucien was hunted and preyed upon by a psychopath under the name of Ianthe forcing him to hide in bathroom that smelled like sick. By the time Lucien escaped, he sauntered straight to Feyre and begged to leave. She didn’t need much persuasion – attempting to talk to Tamlin’s friends was less productive than talking to a brick wall.

“I was a bit preoccupied,” Lucien said.

He saw her nose scrunch up out of the corner of his eye. “Someone try and pull you?”

“More like chop me up and eat me,” he shivered, remembering the way she dragged her nails up his arm.

“Are you okay?” She had been asking that a lot lately. A hand gently touched his upper arm.

“Yeah I’m fine.”

She linked her arm with his. “You’re a terrible liar.”

“Can we change the subject?”

Admitting that she could always see right through him was too humiliating.

“What do you want to do when we get back? Film? Cards? Bed?” she asked, and he was thankful that she didn’t protest, didn’t press further into his wellbeing. That was a can of fucking worms.

“Bed?” he smirked, shooting her a look.

“Yes, that totally meant an invitation to have a nice ‘ole Friday night shag in my boyfriend’s best friends bed.”

He laughed, despite wishing that invitation was legit. He truly was a terrible person.

They reached the end of the forested pathway and onto the main road. Feyre squeezed herself tighter against him as a group of guys approached from ahead.

He squeezed her hand, knowing her discomfort. “Cards? Still have some gin left.”

“Hmm, yes, let’s get drunk. I didn’t really have the chance earlier, Tamlin made me a pathetically weak vodka and coke.”

Earlier that week, Tamlin was ranting on about how he didn’t like Feyre drinking so much when they went out.

Lucien tried to remember at what point Tamlin turned into an A grade wank stain or whether it had always been that way.

He pulled her in impossibly closer as they passed the group. A breath left her lips as they continued, Feyre’s heeled boots clicking slightly on the pavement.

“Well I’ll maketh sure thou art full of gin and satisfied by the end of the night, milady,” he teased, attempting to ease her tenseness.

It worked.

“Why does that sound like a 17th century sexual innuendo.”

“Trust me, Shakespeare was far hornier than that.”

They neared Lucien’s flat, passing a few more drunken groups heading out on their Friday night.  

Feyre had already thrown off her shoes the moment Lucien stepped in and closed the door behind him.

“Retrieve the gin and let the night truly commence, Foxboy,” she declared, throwing off her jacket and practically sprinting towards the sofa.

“I would dare say you’re abusing my hospitality.”

She winked at him, “And don’t you know it.”

Half a bottle of pink gin later, the cards discarded, Feyre was hiccupping her way through Take That’s greatest hits.

The gin was a terrible idea.

She had retrieved Lucien’s hairbrush and was swaying dangerously round the living room. Lucien was intent on watching while he lay motionless on the sofa. Through his heightened gin senses, she looked as painfully perfect as before.

“You’re giving me a bloody headache,” he lied. In fact, he was rather enjoyed her drunk rendition of Relight My Fire, maybe it was because she was singing it to him. And he could barely co-ordinate his limbs.

“Shut up,” she said. “You’re just jealous.”

“I really am,” he muttered, his head falling back to look at the ceiling. He did not remember that ceilings could move.

“Vanserra.” He heard her say.

“ _Vanssseeeeeerrrraaa.”_

He barely registered her climb into his lap and he lifted his head suspiciously.

Feyre hiccupped as she brought her fingers to his lips and moved them up down.

“I’m Lucien, I like being grumpy and moaning about the monarchy,” she mimicked, making herself laugh at the attempt to deepen her voice.

“That doesn’t sound anything like me,” he muttered, trying to ignore the twists in his stomach at the proximity, how her thighs straddled his.

“I’m Lucien, and I get so defensive when Feyre’s right,” she continued, and he slapped away the offending hands. An attempt was made to force his smile away, but his head was too fuzzy.

Before he could protest, Feyre rested her head against his shoulder, moulding their bodies together.

There was a ringing in Lucien’s head, like it was sober rational Lucien trying to wade through the gin that clouded his senses. His hands lay limp at his sides.

“I wish I had met you before Tamlin,” she said softly into his neck. If he were sober, it would have been a lot easier to decipher that statement. But drunk Lucien was still drowning in her touch, the way her hair tickled his cheek.

“He doesn’t deserve you,” he found himself saying. He dared himself to brush a hand up her arm.

Sober Lucien would be very angry at drunk Lucien when he did.

“I know.” Her eyelashes ticked against his neck. “You’re very comfortable Lucien.”

“You really are exploiting my hospitality now.”

She giggled and Lucien couldn’t help his hands any more, as they slowly brushed up her back.

Feyre had left her phone playing, leaving the steady beat of her heart and A Million Love Songs as the only noise in the room.

How fucking convenient.

***

“Final year is going to kill me,” Feyre groaned. “Help me,  _please_.”

Lucien raised his hand, “I graduated in law, how in the hell am I supposed to know anything about astrophysics.”

“If you loved me you would learn 3 years of undergrad astrophysics to help me.”

“I don’t think I could love anyone enough to do that,” he smirked, placing a sandwich in front of her. Egg and cress, she was a woman of simple tastes.

Their dining table was smothered in past papers and some otherworldly language called maths that Lucien had forgotten about years ago. She had been using their flat to study, considering her own house was a rather hostile environment of other stressed out final years.

Feyre picked up the sandwich gratefully, “Thank you.”

Tamlin approached behind her and pressed a kiss to her head. “Keep going, babe,” he said before sauntering to the kitchen.

He glanced away, swallowing the lump in his throat whenever he saw them show any expression of affection.

“I wish I were you guys, you’ve already survived this shit,” she sighed.

“Yeah and then you have to get a job. Which sucks,” Lucien said, picking up a paper with symbols that he had never seen before. Lucien, himself, had been graduated for two years now, having secured a law internship that paid a disappointing amount. It was more than enough to get by on his own, though he sometimes was jealous of Tamlin exceptionally well paid business internship.

Instead of responding, Feyre’s head just fell to the table and she groaned.

“Come on, let’s go for a break.” Taking her pen out her hand, he yanked her from the seat. His hands braced on her shoulders as he steered her to the hallway.

“Buy me ice cream, or I will die,” she groaned.

Lucien leaned closer to say into her ear, “I’ll just have to let you die then.”

Turning she smacked his shoulder and he laughed at the despair on her face.

“Fine, fine I will buy you ice cream, only if you beg for it,” he teased.

She shoved her feet into some trainers. “I’m sure you’d bloody love that wouldn’t you, you fiend.”

They shared a grin, and it almost knocked the breath out of him how much he wanted her.

Someone cleared their throat behind them.

“I think  _I_  will take my girlfriend out,” Tamlin said, shooting Lucien a deathly glare.

It became difficult to swallow. It hit him then how Tamlin must have seen that scenario. Accustomed to taking things of context, Tamlin normally got jealous and angry over small things. But Lucien wondered then if they had crossed a line.

They most definitely had a week before, when Feyre had climbed into his lap and Lucien had held her. Not that they were caught, but Tamlin still went into a mood when he got home knowing that they had left the party together to go home and get abysmally drunk on gin that had Feyre throwing up her bacon sandwich the next morning.

Nothing had happened, Lucien told himself, they only drunkenly held each other while listening to 1990s Take That. And then they had dragged each other to different beds. And Lucien may or may not have kissed her forehead. Or was it her cheek? Maybe both.

He was going to hell.

So as Tamlin took Feyre’s arm, he threw a look that made Lucien want to sink into the floorboards.

He swallowed. Deeply.

***

“Wow, you look nice.”

“We’re going to have to work on your shocking inability of complimenting women, Tam,” Lucien said, looking up to the entry of the kitchen.

Feyre stood there, and every synonym of divinity passed through his head.

Tamlin had a fucking shit vocabulary.

Wearing a fitting dress of onyx, hair loose and wavy, Lucien suddenly found it a slightly more difficult to breathe. He met her eyes to find she was smiling slightly. She smoothed down her dress out of nervousness.

They had kept their distance lately, especially in Tamlin’s presence. It was an unspoken agreement.

“Well, we’ll be off. Reservations at seven.”

Lucien dumbly turned his head towards Tamlin, who most likely had barely given a second glance to Feyre and was more likely throwing daggers at him for blatantly gawking at his girlfriend.

“Yeah, sure. Have a nice night,” he said tensely, as if the words were the most painful things he had ever said. He was pretty certain they were, after  _okay you win_  to Feyre when he had bet that yoga was easy. One class with Feyre and it was safe to say. It fucking wasn’t.

“You too, Luce,” Feyre said with a wink, “Don’t have too much fun without me.”

Tamlin gave her a funny look. Then looked to Lucien with suspicion.

An apologetic look crossed her face.

And then Tamlin pulled her by the hand and out the door.

So, Lucien spent the rest of his evening in his underwear, shouting at the TV the answers to Pointless while stuffing Feyre’s favourite pizza into his mouth. He didn’t know why he ordered it with her toppings. He didn’t even like mushrooms.

He was about to open a bottle of wine, until his phone buzzed.

“Feyre?”

“Lucien.”

He shot up at hearing the strain in her voice.

“What’s wrong?”

A deep breath sounded through the phone. There was a loud bang. “Tamlin’s fucking plastered. He can barely walk. I- I don’t know what to do.”

He was already shoving himself in some jeans. “Where are you?”

Lucien listened as he threw on a shirt and shoes. She had locked herself in Tamlin’s car, after trying to drive them home from what seemed to be an abysmal date. But Tamlin had tried to steer her off the road, and now she was sat in some out of hours carpark because he had demanded to get some more drink. Only that when Tamlin came back to the car, obviously not being served in his state, Feyre had locked him out. And now he was aggressive. The scary type.

He heard the shake in her voice, Tamlin banging on the window - his vocabulary in dishing insults was more colourful than in compliments.

Lucien had practically run there. Without a car, he was grateful she was only round the block. The cold air was thankfully cooling the sweat from his skin as he panted. From a distance, Lucien could already see Tamlin’s obnoxiously red car illuminated by the lone lamppost of the abandoned car park.

His roommate was beating at the bonnet, uttering words of incoherence.

“Tamlin,” he said, as he neared. It was too dark to see Feyre properly through the windscreen, but he saw her shoulders sag in relief.

“ _You_ ,” Tamlin rasped, turning away from the car.

Tamlin when angry was scary, Tamlin when angry and intoxicated was downright terrifying. In either states, Lucien never really would have a chance.

“Tam,” he smoothed, desperately attempting to tame an angry beast. “Let’s get you home okay?”

“What so you can fuck my girlfriend in the next room? I don’t fucking think so.”

Feyre had not disclosed why the night had gone so wrong.

It seemed quite evident.

Tamlin swayed heavily on his feet. “Can’t even fucken deny it. She tried to. Lying bitch.”

“Listen, Tam, we can talk about this when we get home. Let’s go home.”

Few a few seconds, Lucien thought that he was going to comply, until his face contorted into that if something inhuman.

And then he lunged.

Tamlin was so much stronger than Lucien had ever been.

But at least Lucien had the advantage of sobriety.

Tamlin punched the air as Lucien ducked away, surprised at his own agility.

“Tamlin  _don’t_ ,” Feyre had gotten out of the car, barefoot, storming like an avenging goddess to stand in front of Lucien as Tamlin found his footing, barely.

“Feyre-“ Lucien protested, attempting to pull her back behind him as Tamlin glared.

“I’m walking home,” Tamlin spat, before falling face down into the gravel.

_Fuck_. They raced towards him, Lucien falling to his knees to push him onto his back. Unconscious. A quick check of his pulse proved that his best friend had not died.

His face was grazed, which would hopefully remain a reminder of his bloody stupidity when he woke up tomorrow morning with a shitting headache.

Hauling him home was a completely different endeavour. They had managed to haphazardly shove him into the back of his car, not giving a damn how uncomfortably distorted his limbs were. As Feyre started to drive off, Lucien breathed a sigh of relief.

The possibilities of that scenario going so much worse were pretty high. It’s like he felt the ghost of the bruise on his jaw where Tamlin’s punch would have landed.

They were silent for the rest of the way back, even when they dragged a semi-unconscious Tamlin back to the flat. Shoving him onto his bed, without even taking off his shoes, Lucien followed Feyre back into the living room.

“Fey?”

Turning back towards him, Feyre walked straight into his arms.

As if the weight of the night came crashing down in that moment, she began to sob into his shoulder. So, he did the best he could in comforting her, stroking her hair, down her back, repeat.

He hadn’t yet asked how the actual date had gone, though it felt pointless in doing so. Since it was most likely about him. And he could already imagine what would have happened. Somehow Lucien would have cropped up, Tamlin would order more drinks for himself, a tense conversation ensued. More drinking. Perhaps a few attempts to humiliate Feyre in public.

He pressed a kiss into her hair.

She pulled away after what seemed like a lifetime, not that he minded. He could hold her for a lifetime more.

***

The day after, Feyre ended it.

Tamlin had just sat on the bed and took it, utterly motionless.

Now, Lucien navigated his way through Feyre’s student house. He hadn’t really made acquaintance with her housemates, though one of them awkwardly waved when they passed on the stairs.

He knocked gently on Feyre’s door and she opened it with a smile and an eyeroll.

“Who invited you?” she teased.

“You ordered takeaway to my flat,” he deadpanned, lifting the bag. “Was that because you were too lazy to go the front door or because you wanted to see me?”

“Both,” she winked, leaning forward to press a kiss to his lips.

“You’re a menace,” he muttered, pushing her inside and closing the door behind him.

Her room looked different when it wasn’t scattered with mountains of paper and revision notes. Instead her art was proudly on display, an easel with a work in progress of the night sky.

After Feyre had broken up with Tamlin 3 months ago, Lucien decided to start looking for a flat of his own. He needed his own space away from the toxic mess that had become his best friend. Lucien still visited. Something still tugged at him to check up on him, though their meetings were no longer the way they were pre-Feyre Archeron. Lucien realised, however, that even then, their friendship had dissolved into something different.

“Ready to graduate tomorrow?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

“God,  _yes_ ,” she said falling back on her bed with an elated smile. She stretched, her shirt riding up.

Throwing the bag on the floor for the moment, Lucien climbed on top of her, running a hand up the bare expanse of skin on her stomach.

“I’m proud of you,” he said gruffly, stealing a kiss from her lips.

She smiled, running a hand down his face. Brushing her thumb on the skin under his glass eye.

“Are you just going to let my food go cold, Vanserra?”

He grabbed at her wrists pinning them beside her head. “Am I going to have to teach you manners again, Archeron?”

“You’re going to have to pry them from me.” Her faced was flushed, her freckles more pronounced.

He nudged her nose with his, breaths mingling. “No, you enjoy it too much.”

Before he could kiss her again, her eyes went wide.

“Oh! I forgot something. Get off me you oaf.”

Sighing, he rolled off her, “Yes milady.”

She bounced up from the bed, retrieving a bag from her desk while he admired her backside in those jeans.

_What a liberty,_ he thought.

“I bought some things for our flat,” she babbled, her eyes of ice blue lighting up as she shoved her finds into his lap.

“Say that again,” he said smirking, lifting up an egg timer.

“What? Our flat?” A quizzical look crossed her face. “Is this a new kink I have to know about, like a pronoun kink or something?”

He choked on his own laugh. “You really are something else, Feyre Archeron.”

Her eyes glinted teasingly, and she reached forward brushing some hair behind his ear softly. Before shoving him back against the bed.

“But you love me,” she said.

“God knows why.”

She shut him up with a kiss.


End file.
